


is that a knife in your pants or

by shatteredhourglass



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, Drabble, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 13:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16220192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: Short post-civil war roadtrip.





	is that a knife in your pants or

**Author's Note:**

> I'm considering writing a bonus chapter but idk. Lmao.

“Are we there yet?”

"No."

"How about now? Steve. _Steve_."

Steve doesn’t respond to Clint’s plaintive whining, busy reading something scrawled in a battered brown notebook. He sighs and flops back onto the floor of the van, scrunches up his nose when his right hand lands in something sticky. _Please be food and not bodily fluids, please _,__ he begs whatever gods are out there silently, but he doesn’t have much hope. It’s not their finest getaway vehicle, far from it, but no one really expects five superheroes-turned-outlaws to be driving around in something that is vaguely reminiscent of the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo, and that’s why they’ve got it. Clint misses the clean sports cars they used to give him at SHIELD with a passion. He'd gotten a purple car, once. It was a shame he'd crashed it into a lamppost. He’s just glad Scott’s gone home (under house arrest, but still) so there’s at least some breathing room in the back of the van. Wanda’s curled up in the back corner, sleeping, which is a good thing. She needs it, after everything that’s happened. Thinking about what they'd done to her back at the Raft made his chest hurt. He wishes Pietro was still with them to keep her head above water.

He wishes they'd at least let him do something interesting. But no, no one got to do anything except sit and suffer along the ride. Sam’s driving; Wanda can’t drive, Clint drives “ _like he stole the fucking car_ ” (which they _did_ , come on, and anyway, there’s nothing wrong with going fast when you want to get somewhere) and Steve is also a surprisingly dangerous driver. Even Clint's kind of scared of letting Steve drive after what had happened in Tennessee. Which leaves Wilson, because no one even asked Barnes if he’d like a go at driving. Clint tips his head back to see what the former assassin’s doing, and- yep, he’s staring at Clint with that weirdly intense gaze of his.

“Got something on my face?” Clint quips at him.

“Whole lotta ugly, nothing you can fix,” Barnes replies flippantly, and Clint grins.

He should be insulted, really, but when they’d first gotten free Bucky Barnes had been silent, missing an arm and a whole lot of memories and he hadn’t been showing any personality at all. Clint revels in provoking him, if just because he gets to see that little glimmer of who Bucky had been underneath all that brainwashing and murder. He _likes_ Bucky. Maybe a little too much, if he’s honest, but Clint is rarely honest with himself. He blows a dramatic kiss at Bucky instead, gets an amused snort for his efforts. He's unashamedly glad he has Bucky, because he misses his home and his dog and Natasha so much, but this weird hundred-year-old assassin makes him feel like it's not so bad, sometimes. He knows he's made the right choice when Bucky smiles at him like that.

“We should pull over at a motel so you can get some rest too,” Steve informs Sam. “When was the last time you slept? You look tired.”

“Alright, whatever,” Sam grumbles. “So I’m not a supersoldier, sue me.”

“Why doesn’t he ever mother hen _me_?” Clint asks Bucky. "He does it to everyone else."

Bucky shrugs. “Probably knows you’re a lost cause.”

He's absolutely a lost cause, but Steve doesn't need to know that, does he? Clint snorts and lifts up onto his knees, reaching for the cooler tucked away behind Steve’s seat. He rustles around in it and manages to locate a half-full bottle of Absolut, settles on the floor by Bucky’s feet. He could be sitting on an actual seat, sure, but it’s comfortable here. Wanda makes a surprisingly loud snoring noise and he suppresses the urge to laugh by taking a swig of the vodka. It burns his throat on the way down and he grimaces, stretching out his legs. They’ve been on the road for a while, and just sitting there doing nothing is going to kill him quicker than the guns and manhunt will. He’d almost rather have the fighting. No, scratch that, he’d _definitely_ rather have the fighting. Clint’s going to go out of his mind if he doesn’t do _something_ soon.

He takes another swig and evades the metal hand reaching for the vodka. “Mine,” he insists when Bucky tries to grab it again and misses.

“Don’t be greedy,” comes the reply.

“I’ll be as greedy as I want,” he grumbles.

“I lost my left arm _twice_ , give me the damn drink, Barton,” Bucky shoots back.

“I can’t hear your pity party, sorry, must be the deafness,” Clint snipes, ignoring the sharp noise Steve makes at Bucky’s words. Captain America is just too sensitive, honestly, and the kid gloves he treats Bucky with irritate Clint to no end. Clint’s been there, he knows what it’s like to come back and to have done horrendous things that can’t ever be fixed and the soft touch doesn’t help. Bucky isn’t going to break, but treating him like he’s going to at any minute isn’t good for him, for anyone. It's worse, having people act like you're a live bomb ready to go off at any moment. He might be Steve’s friend but Clint _understands_ , and that’s both better and worse for them because of it.

Bucky flicks at his collarbone and Clint jumps at the sharp sting of cold metal on his skin. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but he’s already worked up from weeks of being jammed in small cars with nothing to do and he _needs to get out of here _.__ It feels like his skin’s buzzing with the tension, and instead of paying heed to the warning look Steve gives him he rolls away from Bucky, waves the bottle teasingly. Bucky’s watching him silently, a sort of dark assessing look that makes him feel even more unsettled than he was before.

“You want it? Come get it.”

The words are out of his mouth before he’s even thought it through. _Awh, fuck, way to sound like you’re desperate _,__ he thinks to himself despairingly, but he’s absolutely dying for conflict of some sort and the warning glint in Bucky’s eyes is promising. Steve says something to him in a warning tone, but Clint tunes it out with ease, feeling the thrill of that dangerous look roll up his spine.

Bucky lunges for him, much faster than Clint’s expecting, but he manages to dodge to the side without overturning his prized vodka. The metal hand locks around his ankle, hard and unforgiving, and Clint sets the bottle down before twisting forward, rolling under Bucky. It’s easy from there to hook his free foot around Bucky’s hip and knock him onto the floor of the van. He hadn’t calculated that Bucky would fall on him, though, and the air is forced out of his lungs when the two hundred pounds of solid supersoldier lands squarely on his stomach. Bucky’s hair tickles his chin, but Clint’s more focused on his aching chest. He lets out a faint wheeze. Bucky grunts.

“I expect this kind of childishness from Clint, but Buck, you should know better,” Steve admonishes.

“Shut up,” Bucky grumbles, lifting up onto his elbows. He’s still pressed up against Clint, their legs tangled together, and it’s the closest he’s been to another person since… actually, he can’t remember. Bucky’s surprisingly warm for someone who was frozen on and off for most of his life, and with a few scant inches between their faces he can see the details of Bucky’s face, the dark smudges under his eyes- oh, he’s got _freckles_. That’s surprisingly cute. Clint can’t help the way his lips curve into a smile at the thought of the feared Winter Soldier having something as mundane as freckles. Bucky gives him a dubious look and then looks over Clint’s shoulder to glare, presumably at Steve.

Clint can’t move with Bucky on top of him, and he’s not really inclined to go anywhere anyway. He’s being squashed a little bit, but it’s oddly grounding. He tries not to think too hard about that. He tips his head back to see what Steve’s doing, and upside down, those patented Eyebrows of Disappointment aren’t as effective. Weird. Clint pokes his tongue out at him on a whim and gets an almost comical look of surprise, flinches a little when Bucky snickers on top of him. He’s got an arm free, so he pulls the vodka closer and takes a swig, shifting a little so Bucky’s impractically-placed knife isn’t poking him in the thigh. At least, he’s pretty sure it’s a knife.

“You’re just proving my point, Clint,” Steve says, unimpressed.

“Good,” Clint answers, moving the bottle away when Bucky reaches for it again. Unfortunately, with the way he’s pinned to the floor of the van, he can’t pull any clever evasive maneuvers and the bottle’s retrieved from his hand. Bucky gives him a triumphant glare and goes to drink it, only to realise there’s nothing left in the bottle. Clint smirks at him, raises his left hand to give the brunet the middle finger. Steve sighs resignedly from his seat. Bucky’s still not moving, and Clint would say something but he really doesn’t mind at all, and if Barnes wants to lay on him for the rest of the trip, Clint’s not going to complain.

“...did the sexual tension finally get to be too much?” Wanda asks curiously, and Clint tips his head to the side so he can see her watching them bemusedly, rubbing at her eyes with one hand.

“What sexual tension?”

She doesn’t answer him then, just lifts one dark eyebrow accusingly, and he grimaces. She’s not allowed in his head, but that doesn’t mean she can’t read him like a book. He immediately regrets taking her under his metaphorical wing. Bad Wanda. Bucky just snorts at her, apparently unaffected by her comment, and settles himself a little more comfortably on top of Clint. Some of the pressure eases off of his ribs and he lets out a relieved huff. That’s- quite nice, actually. He could get used to this. He can feel Bucky’s chest against his with every breath he takes, and it’s comforting, having someone this close.

“Do we have sexual tension, Barnes?” Clint queries.

Bucky looks down at him thoughtfully. “Dunno. Do we?”

“If I answered that I think Steve would shoot me,” Clint answers, regrettably honest as always. Steve makes a choking sound in the front of the van and Bucky’s mouth immediately quirks up into an amused smile. Clint could fucking cry, because he’s heartbreakingly beautiful and there’s no way he can take Bucky out on a date or give him half of the attention he deserves, especially because they’re in a dumpy hipster van with three other superheroes on the run from the law and Bucky’s recovering from seventy years of being brainwashed. They can’t go to fancy candlelit dinners or give expensive gifts. Hell, he might not even _want_ Clint like that, he might just be starved for physical contact. Clint’s got no clue, he’s forgotten how to read people like that.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sam says, sounding exasperated. “I thought my counselling days were over, but no, I’m stuck with the most emotionally stunted people in the world.”

“It’s not that b-” Steve starts, but Sam interrupts him.

“No, it is that bad, and you can’t complain because you’re just as bad as they are, if not worse. The difference is that they flirt and get increasingly annoying and you just punch things instead.” Bucky and Clint share a gleefully amused look at that, because damn, they should make Sam stay up all night more often if he’s going to be this funny. “Look, this is an easy fucking situation. Barnes, do you have a romantic interest in the birdbrain currently situated underneath you?”

Bucky gives him an assessing look, and Clint tries to look more like a well-adjusted, sexy superhero instead of an overtired, annoying fugitive. It probably doesn’t work, but Bucky seems to be okay with it. He wishes for a moment that he’d thought to wear something sexier or at least tighter than a baggy Three Days Grace shirt and ripped jeans, but oh well. Bucky probably already knows he’s the biggest disaster on the planet.

“I’m okay with having sexual tension,” Bucky says finally.

“Oh. Good, that’s good,” Clint replies vaguely.

“God, you’re idiots,” Sam grumbles.

“We can’t really step out like this, can we?” Bucky says to him.

“Nah, probably inadvisable,” Clint agrees. “But hey, wanna room together at the motel?”

"We can do that," Bucky concedes. 

"I'm buying earplugs," Sam adds. 


End file.
